InfoWorld - Caught between a rock and a hard place: How do you make online privacy policies stick?. Are privacy policies worth the bits they're printed with? Online privacy policies are inherently mutable things: Changes in management, company direction, or ownership can mean that what's the rule today is just a memory tomorrow. This enrages privacy advocates and befuddles consumers. So maybe it's time to draw up some privacy policies with teeth.

ZDII InterActive Investor - COPA panel wants billions more for cops.

Spending billions more dollars for law enforcement and creating a porn-filter testing group lead the list of likely recommendations to Congress from a government-appointed commission charged with making the Web child-safe.

He (Flores) estimated that the current annual budget for federal cybercrime is less than $200 million. It would take a yearly infusion of $1 billion to $1.5 billion for the next four or five years "just to get us moving," he said.

CNET.com - News - Entertainment & Media - Privacy group slams Web tracking "cat" .

UpsideToday Newsroom: - U.S. Leads Global Snooping Drive - Report.

uk.internet.com - the UK portal for ebusiness - Online privacy - who has the right to know? .

At the start of September, online retailer Amazon.com emailed its customers to inform them it was changing its privacy policy. The new policy set out exactly how the company would use customers' data, but crucially removed the option (still available at Amazon.co.uk) for users to specify that they did not want Amazon to share their information with third parties.

Shortly afterwards, two online pro-privacy organisations, Junkbusters (http://www.junkbusters.com) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), withdrew from Amazon's Affiliate Programme - and a news story was born.

Last week, UK-based campaign group Privacy International joined the fray, claiming that Amazon.co.uk was sharing customer data with its US subsidiary, possibly in contravention of European data protection legislation.

ZDII InterActive Investor - Will privacy kill the CueCat?.

UpsideToday Newsroom: Privista aims to restore some online privacy. The firm landed $17 million in venture capital earlier this month to develop a Web-based product that alerts subscribers to high activity levels on their credit reports that could signal the beginnings of credit identity theft. It's already allied with well-known credit bureau Equifax (EFX).

San Jose Mercury News - CueCat lets privacy out of the bag, critics say.

Some contrast CueCat's promotional materials -- which sport headlines like ``The Information Shortcut You've Dreamed About is Here'' -- with their financial filings with regulators, which critics say tell the real story:

``We intend to use our :C.R.Q. and :Cue:C.A.T. technology to develop and maintain a substantial database of consumer demographic information that our customers can use with our permission to conduct advertising campaigns,'' reads DigitalConvergence's stock-registration filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

What makes CueCat different from many other forms of tracking online -- such as the ubiquitous ``cookies'' left on computers when people visit Web sites -- is that CueCat has the constant ability to link a user's name to his or her behavior. That's because users must register the software to use it, providing their names, e-mail addresses, age, gender and ZIP code. And each CueCat has a unique serial number tied to the user.

InfoWorld - Security software vendor develops Carnivore e-mail monitoring alternative. In an attempt to give Internet service providers a way to comply with court orders for monitoring e-mail without installing the FBI's controversial Carnivore surveillance system, security software vendor Network ICE is developing an e-mail sniffing program that it said could be used as an alternative to Carnivore.

dmnews.com - Your Direct Marketing Network - Privacy Foundation Proposes Web Debugging.

The Privacy Foundation, a consumer education group, released recommended guidelines this month for the use of so-called Web bugs.

While consumers are slowly becoming aware of the small tracking text files on their hard drives called cookies, Web bugs are emerging as another little-known threat to Web users' privacy, the group said.

"Almost all Web bugs in use today are invisible, so their tracking function is hidden to consumers," said Richard M. Smith, chief technology officer at the Privacy Foundation, Denver.

Web bugs are graphics embedded in Web pages or in e-mail messages to track site visitors or readers of e-mail. The privacy group's guidelines call for icons indicating that Web bugs are present, identification of origin, full disclosure of the bug's functions, the ability for the visitor to opt out, and exclusion of bugs at pages of a sensitive nature, such as medical and financial pages.

New York Times - free registration required U.S. Leads Global Snooping Drive - Report.

``The U.S. government has led a worldwide effort to limit individual privacy and enhance the capability of its police and intelligence services to eavesdrop on personal conversations,'' the report, ``Privacy Human Rights 2000,'' said.

The survey, to be released next week at a privacy conference in Venice, Italy, said FBI Director Louis Freeh had nudged countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic to expand wiretapping.

Slashdot | Peer-To-Peer Encrypted Email. The companies www site: AbsoluteFuture.com. and the product's www site: SafeMessage Home Page.

ACLU Action Alert: Protect Internet and Telephone Privacy!.

To better protect individual privacy, Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL) has introduced the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act," H.R. 5018, which is slated for action next week in the House Judiciary Committee.

The new Canady bill would insure that federal law enforcement agents meet a higher legal threshold before forcing your phone company or Internet Service Provider to disclose information on your conversations or physical whereabouts. Currently, federal officials only have to show that the information requested would be relevant to a pending investigation.

The Clinton administration is trying to load down the bill with amendments that would lead to more wiretapping and government access to the email of innocent people. Privacy must be strengthened, not weakened, in this digital age. You can read more about the legislation and urge your member of Congress to support the privacy provisions in the bill at our (the ACLU) action alert: